[sac-forum] Re: Messier Marathon results questions

M-77 is pretty low surface brightness and relatively even consistancy, its highly unlikely that you were seeing M-77's core. 

David Hofland
Director, Student Services
College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Jacksonville State University
256.782.5276
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Jones" <timj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <sac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 7:03 PM
Subject: [sac-forum] Re: Messier Marathon results questions
Bob has updated me - it apparently wasn't Delta Ceti as Delta Ceti would have been out of the FOV with both eyepieces, so now I'm lost as to what the star was that we saw, but it was bright enough to see even before astronomical twilight. Is it possible that we were seeing the core of M77 and not a star? I'm now totally confused :-O. 

Tim


On Apr 11, 2008, at 3:46 PM, Tim Jones wrote:
As an added note to our tracking, we were able to see Delta Ceti for almost 10 minutes before we lost it behind the mountain. 

On Apr 11, 2008, at 3:39 PM, Tim Jones wrote:
I have to add my voice to the questions that have come up concerning the viewing of M77. With two observers reporting that they visually saw M77, I am curious as to the method used and what, if any, filters were employed. Bob and I tracked M77 with a Celestron 9.25" SCT with 36MM and 25MM Plossel eyepieces until M77 was physically below the mountain and the background light continually obscured any chance of our seeing this Mag 8.9 object. Of course, our attempt at sighting M77 cost us M33... :-(
I'm not trying to cast doubt on the two reported sightings, just trying to understand what we could have done differently from what we did. 

Tim

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